Siblings
by Sparks
Summary: When they were growing up, Meredith and Jeannie McKay were inseparable.


Title: Siblings

Rating: K+

Notes: When they were kids, Meredith and Jeannie McKay were inseparable.

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

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When they were kids, Meredith and Jeannie McKay were inseparable. 

They played together, they ate together and they learnt together. They shared cookies and books and toys, and it was Meredith's bed that Jeannie crawled into when she had nightmares. He braided her hair in the mornings, taught her how to recognise prime numbers, and didn't laugh at her when she got her spellings wrong.

It wasn't that their parents didn't love them, but their father spent a lot of time at the university, and their mother never quite understood her genius children. Their father wanted them to have what he'd had to give up – so long as he didn't have to be involved with it. Their mother didn't know how to relate to children who sometimes talked in numbers.

There was a big age gap between them. Meredith was nine when Jeannie was born, but he was never jealous of her. He loved her from the moment she was placed into his arms in the hospital room, and he made a promise that he would protect her from everything.

When Jeannie was three, Meredith played with her in the yard so she didn't hear their parents fighting. When she was five, and started kindergarten a year early, she came home in tears because the teacher didn't believe that she was not only able to count to ten, also but knew her multiplication tables and how to add and subtract fractions and percentages. Meredith started teaching her algebra.

When she was five and a half, she started trying to play tricks on her brother. She put worms in his sandwiches and tied his feet to his bed. He got her back by blowing up her dolls. When he saw how upset she was, he taught her how to blow things up for herself.

When Meredith was sixteen and Jeannie was seven, he went to university. She wrote to him once a week, almost religiously, and when he wrote back she would read the letter over and over until the paper was worn almost to pieces. He didn't come back for the holidays.

When she was eight and a half, her parents took Jeannie to Meredith's graduation. She wore her favourite dress – blue with ribbons – and new black shoes, and braided her hair the way Meredith had done when she was small. She watched her brother get his diploma – so much younger than the rest of his graduating class – and afterwards she ran through the crowd to find him, ignoring her mother's calls.

There were people in robes everywhere, and she couldn't find her brother. She was starting to panic when she heard someone talking about Zorn's lemma, a mathematical proof that she'd read recently. She attached herself to the three talking about it – when she asked a question, they looked at her as if she were something completely unknown.

"You're Rodney's sister," one of them guessed.

"Meredith," she said uncertainly.

"That's right – McKay."

They talked about the proof, and other theorems, until somebody caught Jeannie up from behind. She screeched in delight, recognising her brother, and hugged him tight.

"You scared me," he said.

"Don't go away again," she ordered, burrowing into his arms. Meredith came home with them and started teaching Jeannie physics. He left to study again soon afterwards.

When they were teenagers, Meredith and Jeannie McKay were good friends. He helped her with her homework over the phone (unless he thought she ought to be able to do it herself) and he came to visit more often. He completed one PhD and started on another, and she graduated early from high school, just like him. She went to university, got a degree, and then started post-graduate study at the university her brother was attached to.

They shared a flat – his side was a mess and hers was perpetually neat. He put worms in her bed, and she shaved off his eyebrows in his sleep.

When Meredith was thirty and working for the US government, and Jeannie was twenty-one and about to start studying for her second degree, their father died. They returned for the funeral, dressed in black and avoiding their mother's eyes. Afterwards, with friends and family crowded into their childhood home, Jeannie curled up in Meredith's old bed. It was too small for an adult – certainly two small for two, but Meredith curled up behind her and put a tentative arm around her.

Two years later he moved to Siberia, and Jeannie met Caleb.

Caleb was an English major who knew nothing about physics or maths, and she fell in love with him. She didn't tell Meredith, in the rare phone calls, almost afraid of what he would say. She worked at her PhD and moved in with Caleb and tried not to be hurt that the phone calls grew rarer and briefer.

When Jeannie was twenty-four, she got pregnant. She called her mother – a rare interaction – and then called Meredith.

"You can't be serious," he snapped. "What about your PhD? You're throwing away your whole future."

"I'm not you, Mer," she retorted. "Maybe I think this is something worth doing – better being a mother than working for the government doing god knows what!"

"Actually –"

"Why can't you just be pleased for me?" she demanded.

"Because I'm not. You could be so much more, Jeannie, you've got all these grants, and you're really onto something with that last paper you published –"

She hung up. A year later, when she had a beautiful baby daughter, she got a letter from Meredith. He was going away, the letter explained, and he probably wouldn't be back for a while. She read it three times, easily deciphering his scratchy handwriting, and then put the letter at the back of her wardrobe.

When Jeannie was twenty-nine and Meredith was thirty-eight, he turned up at her front door.

"Your proof could lead to something groundbreaking," he told her, and "This is not what Dad would have wanted."

When she was twenty-nine and he was thirty-eight, he showed her that the world was a lot bigger than she had ever thought, just like he had when they were children.

"How are you?" he asked. "Are you happy? Are you okay?"

She hugged him tight and tried not to cry. "Yeah, Mer. I am. I really am."

Meredith came to visit at Christmas with presents for everybody and he even played with Madison. He put his hand on Jeannie's stomach, even though he couldn't feel anything, and apologised for missing this the last time around.

"The baby doesn't know," Jeannie pointed out.

"I do," he said seriously.

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Comments are loved. 


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